Picture of Me

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. But is it really? A piece of literature gives you some semblance of where it is going and if you read carefully, you can divine the writer's feelings

A picture by itself tells no story. It paints no figurative picture of who the individuals in it are or what the picture signifies to the persons captured in the image.

Take the above photograph for instance. In it you see a mother holding her child. It is a picture that usually will arouse tender and warm feelings within the person who is viewing it. But this one does not--at least not for me.

I am that child in the photo. A toddler who would shortly there after be given up by that mother to his father so she could travel the country in pursuit of her musical dreams. Fortunately, I had and have an incredible father who loved me with all his heart. I thank God everyday for him and my paternal grandfather who assisted my dad.

But that picture. That picture. I cannot get it out of my head. It hurts so much to see it. Why couldn't she love me? Why did she leave? How could she leave her baby behind? All I ever wanted was her to love me as any mother loves her child.

But she couldn't. That was never going to happen with a narcissist obsessed with the dream of making big in the music industry. Raising her boys while making a good living as a special education teacher was never going to be enough. She had to pursue that dream nevermind the consequences to those who should have mattered most.

Life worked out for my father. He met aand married a wonderful woman who is everything my mother was not in 1990. They will be celebrating their 20th Anniversary this August.

I myself have struggled with the damage her departure from my life caused. I have had to go to psychiatrists to deal with the anger, lack of confidence, and confusion that has plagued me since she decided to try to become an American Idol long before there anyone had heard of such of a thing.

She left me estranged from the female gender. I have been unable to connect in a deep way through my life. I have never had a girlfriend nor been with a woman. People may wonder why I would admit such a thing openly and to them I say: It's who I am. I feel no shame in admitting that I have been psychologically damaged by events in my past.

Though I went on to graduate from college from Eastern Michigan University in 2002 with a degree in Journalism, I find myself working a menial job that offers no potential for a better paying future. Crippled by a lack of confidence in myself for the longest time, I am now starting to dig my way out of the self esteem hole that I started off life in.

My mother's story is the tragic part of this. She continued to pursue her dream of singing for the next 20 years all the while teaching autistic children to sing at a school in Garden City, Michigan. She even made an appearance on the local television show Kelly and Company, to talk about it.

Then in the spring of 1998 she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She tried everything--chemo, alternative treatments, etc. Nothing worked. In May of 1999 she passed away from that dreadful disease at the age of 46.

At her funeral, I felt confusion. I felt bad, but not crushed as one would normally would feel at the death of their mother. It felt as if an aunt or uncle had passed, not my mother. My older brother--a child from her first marriage--stayed in California.

That is ultimately the tragedy of my mother.While many attended her funeral, those who should have mattered most were left confused about how to feel over the passing of the person who gave them life. When her ashes' were spread over Mackinac Island, neither I or my brother were on hand.

Photos can and do achieve meaning beyond the intent of the person took the picture. That photograph of me and my mother symbolize to me what should have been.It is a cruel reminder of what she gave up to pursue her American Dream.